Hyderabad: At the heart of the land fiasco at the University of Hyderabad – also known as Hyderabad Central University – triggered by the recent decision of Telangana government to reclaim a controversial 400 acre parcel is a huge holding that the university was once in possession of and which is gradually shrinking.
While the recent tussle with the government has caused heartburn to the students, documents have surfaced in the public domain that have complicated the matter. The protesting students argue that the 400-acre forest land belongs to the university but the government claims that it has always been the absolute owner of the campus property worth thousands of crores.
For now, the Supreme Court has stayed the clearing of the 400-acre green cover by the Telangana government. The order came a day after the Telangana High Court ordered a pause on the tree-felling.
Who owns the land?
Documents in possession with The Wire indicate that the government may be legally correct in reclaiming the land but it would still be going against popular opinion and destroying the biodiversity of the area.
The forest land, which is situated within the Hyderabad University campus, was never registered in the five decades of the varsity’s existence.
The university was the custodian of 2,324.05 acres allotted to it by the order of a Deputy Secretary of Education in united Andhra Pradesh, B. Ramachandra Reddy, on February 21, 1975. However, the revenue records showed that the said land in Survey Number 25 of Kancha Gachibowli village in Serilingampally mandal was recorded as “Kancha Asthabal Poramboke Sarkari”, i.e. government land. Kancha means grazing/waste land and Poramboke refers to non-cultivable use.
A confidential report that The Wire has seen stated that the university was given possession of the entire land but it was neither alienated, nor was the ownership transferred in favour of the university.
Yet, the protesting students have said that nothing can wean them away from the lands of their alma mater.
All these years, barring the deputy secretary’s order, the university had no title to the land though it took on a massive expansion, opening several branches of higher learning and relocating its Schools of Social Sciences and Humanities on the campus from The Golden Threshold bungalow, an off-site campus at Abids – which used to be Sarojini Naidu’s home.
Also read: The Attack on the Land of the University of Hyderabad Is an Attack on India
The order 21 February, 1975 read: “The State government has decided to allot the University of Hyderabad free of cost an extent of 2,300 acres of land at Kancha Gachibowli on the left side of the old Bombay road. This area includes an extent of 200 acres which would be earmarked for the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The allotment of the land to the university will be subject to the condition that the land should be used for the purposes allotted. The land will revert to the State government if it is used for other purposes not directly connected with education or technology without the prior written permission of the State government”. Later, 24.05 acres were added to the extent of land allotment.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a top official of the university confirmed to The Wire that the campus functioned solely on the above conditions all these years.
An annexure to the document fixed the boundaries to the campus. He expressed hope that the land on which the university is situated will be registered soon as so much hype has been created in the last few days owing to the government’s attempt to reclaim the 400-acre parcel, which was an integral part of 2,300-acre land.
Another retired higher official privy to the land issue, who also did not want to be named, said that the allotment was made to the university in 1975, a year after it came into existence, when there was no demand for land in this part of Hyderabad. And, the university, at no stage, sought to register the land in its name from the government as it did not perceive any threat of encroachments due to the construction of a massive compound wall.
Eyes on the land
When pressure started building up with more and more urban development in Gachibowli area and consequent escalation in land prices, the previous government constituted a committee of secretaries to negotiate with the university administration to surrender portions of the campus.
The committee questioned the administration’s reason for holding so much land merely for academic purposes. It suggested to the officials to go for vertical growth to meet its expansion needs. This may not require more than 100 acres, the retired official said.
Alerted by signals of the government setting its eyes on the land, the university carried out a series of communications with officials at the Secretariat for registration. The then vice-chancellor, Ramakrishna Ramaswamy. toiled hard for registration, personally visiting the Secretariat and ministers. However, the efforts never succeeded.
Then, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government, led by N. Chandrababu Naidu, entered into an agreement with IMG Bharata, a company which came forward to develop sports infrastructure in Hyderabad. The agreement was made with the company chairman Ahobila Rao, alias Billy Rao, just ahead of the 2004 Assembly elections in united Andhra Pradesh.
The agreement envisaged handing over 400 acres from university campus and allotment of another 450 acres, far away in Mamidipalli village, in favour of IMG Bharata. In lieu of the 400 acres of the campus, the university was compensated with 397.16 acres in nearby Gopanpally district.
In 2006, this agreement was cancelled by Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy-led Congress government but the firm carried on a legal battle until the Supreme Court conferred legal rights on the land to the government last year.
By then, the university had already constructed schools of economics, management, mathematics and statistics on the 400-acre parcel even though the government laid its claim on the land. Meanwhile, a road was laid through it for a housing colony of government staff.
It was the present Congress government of Revanth Reddy which pursued the case seriously on assuming power in 2023. Neither did the previous Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) government take any action in the litigation, nor did the university implead in the case during its 18-year-pendency.
Who needs the land more?
According to Professor G. Haragopal, a former history teacher at the university, who was among a dozen persons invited by a three-member Group of Ministers on April 1 to discuss measures to resolve the campus land issue, the absence of registration for university land has become a strong point for the government to push its claim as rightful owner.
“The ministers only projected the development agenda of the government at the site by bringing the issue of investments and creation of jobs to the negotiating table. We asked them whether that is what development is all about,” Professor Haragopal said.
“They refused to go into environmental concerns over the land caused by the presence of rare species of animals and water bodies. The government also said in the document that the growth of wild bushes was a result of neglect on the part of successive governments. Any land which was left unattended for more than 20 years was bound to breed bushes and plants,” he added.
Professor Haragopal said that 400 acres was clandestinely allotted to IMG Bharata by the Chandrababu Naidu government without informing the university administration. It was cancelled by Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy with an idea to implicate Naidu in some other case.
Creation of Hyderabad Central University
Recalling early days, he said that Hyderabad University was the only university in the country with a constitutional status as it came into being by means of the 32nd constitutional amendment, incorporating a six point formula to end the separate Telangana agitation in the state in late 1960s. One of the six points was setting up a central university with all of Andhra Pradesh as jurisdiction for enrolment of students.
Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took the initiative of amendment. A gazette notification was also issued by the Union government on creation of the university.
The first vice chancellor, Gurbux Singh, was credited with constructing the compound wall for the entire boundary of the 2,324.05-acre campus. He walked holding an umbrella over his head to oversee the construction, said an official.
Students union president Umesh Ambedkar said that he learnt from informed people that everyone expressed surprise over Singh spending central grants for the university on construction of the compound wall when more was required for academic purposes. “The wall is proof of our rights on the land,” Ambedkar said.
“The earlier batches of students were confident that no one would touch our lands as the university was enclosed within the boundaries of the wall. But large chunks of land were regularly handed over to various institutions over the years by breaking the wall,” he added.
Vennela Mocherla, president of Ambedkar Students Association, said that the responsibility of registration of the land vested with the government but it failed to deliver.
“It was the dream of Indira Gandhi to develop the university as a centre of eminence. The need for registration of lands might not have been felt initially because of trust and pre-eminence of the university. Nobody could ever imagine that the university’s lands will be taken away one day. The silence of the university in the matter was also questionable,” she said.
Apart from the 400 acres which is at the centre of the latest controversy, 812.13 acres of university land has been allotted to 20 institutions and entities over the years, which has largely shrunk the size of the university campus.
Out of the 2,320 acres originally given to the university, water bodies (four lakes) have occupied 105 acres, rocks and rocky areas have occupied 400 acres, biodiversity (green buffer area) 255 acres, high-tension lines 200 acres and roads and pathways have occupied 65 acres.
So, in total, 1,025 acres cannot be used for construction.
Land given vs land remaining
Land from the total area of the university campus has been distributed to several institutions over the years. For instance. 62 acres were given to Ranga Reddy district collectorate, and huge chunks were given to the various departments of sports authority of Andhra along with other educational institutions and official departments.
Here’s the full list:
Document containing the list of institutions who got part of the
HCU land. Photo: N. Rahul
Interestingly, 25 acres of the property was given to ‘heirs of Lingamaiah’. It is significant that Lingamaiah, a litigant and private individual, held 25 acres of land in the heart of the campus and it was important to compensate him with an equal size of land elsewhere within the campus as well. Of the 25 acres allotted to him, four acres were involved in a long legal battle which finally ended up in handing it over to a corporate entity.
Total land given away: 1,212.13 acres
Balance available with Hyderabad University for educational development or construction of new departments, offices, hostels and recreation facilities: 484.04 acres (including 397.15 acres of land given to the university in adjoining Gopanpally in lieu of the 400 acres allotted to IMG Bharata).
